Sheffield Wednesday’s £9m Hillsborough revelation casts fresh shadow over Dejphon Chansiri | OneFootball

Sheffield Wednesday's chief executive, David Bruce, has lifted the lid on how much was spent to improve Hillsborough this summer

Sheffield Wednesday's chief executive, David Bruce, has revealed that the new Arise ownership group only expected to invest £5 million in improving Hillsborough this summer, but that figure was nearly doubled come the start of the season.

It's been an incredibly busy summer at Hillsborough, with work being done immediately to help rectify the years of stagnation under former owner Dejphon Chansiri.

Stories have come out about the level of neglect by the unpopular former owner during his decade at the club over the past year. From the administrators buying 40 laptops immediately after taking control last October, as technology was "older than some of the staff," to former players slamming the Thai businessman for the lack of investment in the training ground.

Sometimes, the level of negligence has to be seen to be believed, and David Storch, along with the rest of the new-look board, was left baffled by the amount of work which needed to be done to get the stadium up to scratch.

David Bruce outlines how much money Arise thought they needed to invest in improving Hillsborough this summer

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In the end, around ten to 15 years' worth of work was conducted in three months at Hillsborough this summer in a project worth around £9 million.

But speaking to The i, new Wednesday chief executive David Bruce revealed that the new owners thought they only needed to spend £5 million to improve the ground, before they actually realised how far back it was in terms of modernisation and generally being a decent place to watch football.

"We came in and thought we’d spend £5m, largely on safety, foundational stuff to make the stadium a place you want to come to," he said.

"Flushing the toilets and not getting water coming through the roof. The ability to serve pies and pints in a decent way. But the more you uncovered, the more you saw something you actually wanted to work on too."

With all the extra work and added investment needed, Bruce commended everyone who played a part in getting everything ready for their League One return last month.

"Normally you would get things signed off in the budget at Christmas time, then finalise and start the work when you get to summer," he continued. We didn’t start thinking about this stuff until two weeks after the owner owned the club.

"There’s obviously still bits and pieces getting done. But to get all of that done before the start of the season… I can’t believe how much the team achieved."

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The fact that Dejphon Chansiri allowed such a historic ground to effectively become a relic will disgust many Sheffield Wednesday fans.

Those in the stands at Hillsborough will have realised how poorly kept the stadium was during their time going to games, but the fact that £9 million needed to be invested just emphasises the inattention given to his own football club by the former owner.

On the flip side, that generates even more adoration for David Storch and the rest of the Arise consortium, who knew how big a task they were getting themselves into when they finalised the takeover in early May, but even they couldn't predict how drastic the situation was.

Despite that, though, Storch and co have made good on their obligations as the new owners to bring the ground up to scratch and the club back to a position where the fanbase can be proud of it once more — in record time, too.

There probably wouldn't have been many issues with this work taking a little longer, as long as fans knew it was happening, but the fact it's almost all done over the summer, and more has been invested, will only serve to build more support for the new regime.

David Bruce outlines the importance of communication with Sheffield Wednesday fans

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Despite the amount invested and the hard work done to improve the stadium on matchdays in such a short space of time, David Bruce admitted that they're still a way off from getting Hillsborough to where they want it to be.

Not many Sheffield Wednesday fans would begrudge that too much, as there have been a lot of things to be crossed off a very lengthy to-do list since the final day of the Championship campaign back in May.

The communication of that, though, is definitely something that Owls fans are appreciating currently. Every club wants their owners and board members to be open and transparent, and thus far, whether that be through Bruce's interviews or David Storch's tweets, they're getting what they deserve as fans.

“Let’s communicate and let’s communicate frequently. We’re still not where we need to be with certain things on matchday. So we articulate that in the matchday guide. We want to be very open and honest about that," Bruce concluded.

"I think a lot of clubs will understandably wait until they are almost at the mid-point of the journey.

"Well, we want to tell you about the journey now, because the journey is the most exciting part when you’ve experienced what these people have. It’s intoxicating; it might be a little bit messy at times, but that’s OK because we’re together."